FOUR
× FOUR
COLUMBIA
READING
Daniel Shanon
MASTHEAD
VISUALS
James Leckie
Serena Deng
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
MANAGING
Bryan Ge
DIGITAL
David Chen
Renee
Morales
STAFF
Alejandra Díaz-Pizarro, Ollie Ipkendanz, Josh Kazali, Tai Nakamura, Tianyi Shen, Xime Silva, Lyla Wolf, Naomi Zarin
DEAR READER
HELLO. IT’S US. 4×4 meets 4×3 this year as we turn twelve. As we mature into our tween years, our magazine has grown out, becoming all bulk and block. We wriggle; we grow new limbs. We find ourselves flush from excitement, then embarrassment. We don’t hide from our feelings, but face them head-on. Lying flat on our backs, we expose our bellies, like in Andrew Forrest Joseph Blake’s “MY DENTIST WINTERS IN ASPEN.” “Also, who said all 12-yearolds could just be friends? I have opinions and interiority, Mom!!!” We got that from “CRYBABY! / CRY, BABY” by Helen Chen.
This year we catch and are caught between: impressions, seasons, words, the wind. We’re wandering “the moment field,” as Eamon Costello puts it in “Always Never Change,” solid yet never stable, flickering like the bulb in Jonathan Wang Hou’s “My bathroom light.” Elsewhere in the magazine, our form is edible: flattened on the cutting board in Nathan Cho’s “The Tenderizing Mallet,” and cut with silver knives in Lúcia Towne’s “One of Twenty, All Fall Flat.” Juices stain our faces.
Volume XII is a tantrum. We “clack together in unanimous outrage” (like the DVDs of Reese Alexander’s “For Alvy”), and “keep kicking the ground” as we listen to the passing cars, our despair evident (as in Eamon Costello’s “I want to be a stalk of wheat on the side of the road”). Yet “we’re not dumb”; we’re aware that consequences trail behind, that “bugs lay eggs in your ears and nose,” as Lúcia Towne tells us in “Neighbor Girls.”
We tussle with time and space. Renee Morales rises with urgency, her hurricanes unabridged in “AMAARAE SAID WE GON’ GET PAID BUT I’M STILL WAITING.” And yet our magazine folds down, “drunk like cardboard boxes,” like in “Rising Tricolon” by Charlie Coleman.
Twelve years on from our founding, we have only grown eager for more: more of your musings, more of your morsels, more of you. We hope this issue lodges in your brain as it has in ours, the works in it like many stones splitting a river, or pebbles in a shoe. Enjoy.
STEPHEN DAMES & IRIS YU EDITORS-IN-CHIEF 2024-2025
It’s a hooting and hollering good time, those summer days. Bugs lay eggs in your ears and nose. They know when you’re lying and they punish you for it, making offspring in your orifices. It’s their home you’re in so they can fill you as they see fit. Summer is an infestation that blackens our footprints on an old trampoline out back. There’s no school books to run home to. We got a puppy, but not for long. He’ll bite someone’s neck or step on beer bottle glass and he’ll have to go away, but we’re not dumb. The only way you leave this yard is in a body bag. The bugs impart wisdom so get it through your thick skulls. Kool-aid colored honey blonde hair only attracts more bugs, they get drunk on the taste of it just like the men in the garage. It’s a cigarette burn in a tent, a vice consequence.
LÚCIA TOWNE NEIGHBOR GIRLS
SELECTED BY TERESE SVOBODA
ANDREW FORREST JOSEPH BLAKE
MY DENTIST WINTERS IN
ASPEN
WHAT GOOD IS BEGGING YOURSELF, ANDREW. to discuss grief you have to open your mouth wide enough to wrap your tongue around the dentist’s finger which is inappropriate but for some reason he’s wearing cowboy boots and I really can’t help myself they’re exotic leather, crocodile skin
Funny cuz I’m the one that’s got you in my jaw wired shut—pain is, really, an ordinary concept Exposing my belly Trading teeth for Vicodin YOU KNOW, NUMBERS AND MATH ARE ABSTRACT. IT’S HUMANS ROCKS AND TREES THAT ARE CONCRETE. I still dream about my teeth falling out Falling, in general
A fish hook caught in my lip or a labyrinth All the gardens I’ve abandoned I want to be absolved I NEED TO BE CERTAIN
When you buy an American grave, it’s yours forever thank god my country will win who else would mow the lawns?
the deer not caught in the crocodile’s death roll between rows of teeth, yelling YOU WILL HAVE TO ACCEPT UNCERTAINTY I open my mouth
Your DVDs have unionized. I’m writing because I thought that you should know. The box of them I found in my storage space, the expensive Criterions. You told me you would come get them some months ago. I am starting to think that you are never coming home.
I shoved them under my bed last Tuesday. I could bear the sight of them inside my wardrobe no longer. Looming down at me every morning as I flipped through dull sweaters, staring like an Old World vampire trapped on the top shelf.
REESE ALEXANDER
FOR ALVY
“Go be gone,” I said as I relegated them to their new home. “Go be gone.”
But at night, I hear them at it. Plastic cases clack together in unanimous outrage, genres organizing beneath that small Hollywood sign, constructed from dust bunnies, forgotten bobby pins.
“Miss, our order is all mixed up!” They call to me. “Lynch is next to Almodovar, Wenders nowhere near Wong Kar Wai. Our paper covers are bent, scratched, ripped like birthday wrapping!”
“Miss, we used to populate the mantel. We used to sing songs to you and him each night. And you smiled as you popped open our Halloween mask faces. Do you remember? Do you see?”
When I left you, please know, it was horrible. But I cannot come back.
ALEXANDER
LÚCIA TOWNE ONE OF TWENTY, ALL FALL FLAT.
As inspired by Adrienne Rich
Looking down the table to you, we’re one ache, like a proclaimed autumn wrong, windswept, I watched you cut your steak, the aged silverware of the knife pointless, typewriter useless— or a distant helicopter, sitting beside you watching the projected screen burn away with the headlight pain, Looney Tunes playing. You do the mundane. I’m calling it a miracle.
This table is not far enough from you, and angled: I can hear you chew, I know those teeth. There’s a spectacularity to it, canine urging me to give up the good fight. To give up the window, the sound of the sky. A fall, in your name.
THE TENDERIZING MALLET
I felt empty today so I bought a steak for dinner. As I stood in that aisle of protein I felt a craving set itself on me for a dinner that I bought with my money fill my body with the real and the red and the protein-rich with fibers I could pull apart and live in as they squeezed shut and digest red belly of traps that attract insects so well and I was drawn to that steak so round and tall. I am not sure if it was old or just bad from an underfed cow or one mutated since birth to be left with lame legs and no means to find itself grass or air to turn to blood to turn into the milk seeping into cracks of life but this thick cut was a pale pink not red like it was drained and dry. I had not realized what this meant for my meal that was sure to be spoiled because of the meat’s guaranteed toughness upon cooking on the stove with hot fire and need like rubber like fake like failure until I was staring at it in my hands where I held the meat with no bag as I was walking back home; it was the only thing I had bought. I puzzled for many moments about what to do with it. It sat on the cutting board on the marble across the room as I observed it from my chair some distance away. I sat staring at its solidness. After moments of pondering and an interlude search for salt and pepper in the cabinets and now the turmeric and paprika lay spilled on the floor. I resolved to bring the steak back to edible to make it something I could eat without guilt beat it back its blood like its life to the surface prove its alive reaction.
bAM bAm BAm BaM bAM BAM bam BAM baM Bam BaM BAm bam BAM shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake
The mallet I tore into the meat those little fibers little solids opened in submission and it was pink all the way down and no home was there because they were washed over like wave on sand all the holes of air and pink and covered and killed. That tall solid thing flattened by me to fill the counter top and the marble ran and shuddered. I attempted to retrieve from this now mass my cutting board the one the steak had previously sat on as it let its air into my home my mother bought me for the kitchen I had not thought to furnish but I could not tell it from the slate of meat table and I did not want to take and hold onto something just for it to decay as it sat in darkness in the back of the cabinet or behind the sink or the small of my back. I did not want the kitchen to stink. I elected to deal with it all all at once finding no way out of this kitchen presence and I carefully slid that table tile onto my hands. It was stiff and warm like a reflex and brought it outside to see it lift into the oncoming wind. It caught on a nearby tree and I watched it to be eaten by crows.
NATHAN CHO
RENEE MICHELLE MORALES
AMAARAE SAID WE GON’ GET PAID BUT I’M STILL WAITING
Eye fleshed both I’s unabridged like semi-urban automatic kitty-slanging hurricanes. And in suburb come to still tired of being and always being too broke. Rise at the instant a check hits like Espresso Martini flights after expectations shot back n’ pointed like dick and sparkling water, is night brigaded sugarcane to stay awake and my dreaming of wet dollars tucked into the faded band of my brassiere, said I would enjoy stripping and meant it, like bare ass on grass blade bled and what it takes to beget something, to desire the noise blind-guidedly, tongue crashing at the tart taste of nickel, or Hey, as in: I would give anything to be you, to speak, to manufacture your flannel unadulterated money-smile to fuck your money or yes, come apart like dull summer partitions in the road when daybreak tired and I am still here, tired, smiled and thankful for the beautiful life of waiting for miracled company, for the privileged refrain of swallowing seed from your bastard fir, feather-choking on the swallow.
I WANT TO BE A STALK OF WHEAT ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
Not because I actually want to be one but because I am sitting with a big family of wheat stalks
They are thinking and can hear each other’s thoughts but I can’t hear any of them. Instead, I listen to the cars going 65-95 miles per hour on the road with my ears. I have to figure out what to do with my legs. And I have to figure out how to make my back stop hurting so much. The wind refuses to move me like it moves them. I keep kicking the ground. The wheat stalks are making me so angry that I have to get up and walk around. But I will not allow myself to walk away. That would be defeat.
I think I might walk over to them and rip them apart with my arms and my hands. My eyes follow the wind as the stalks bump into one another and drop their seeds around the ground. One lands near my feet and I pick it up, hold it, eat it, walk away from the roadside.
EAMON COSTELLO
COSTELLO
HELEN CHEN
CRYBABY! / CRY, BABY
I wiped down the shit stain because this is Mrs. Mescal’s basement and we lived in it. The shit stain belonged to Eli. Yesterday Eli took a long shit in our bathroom and from the way he walked, so nervous but determined, I knew he was up to no good. Eli is Mrs. Mescal’s son. Mrs. Mescal is our landlord. Everyone said she’s a rich widow who probably also killed her husband and her son saw this in real time. Everyone meaning my friends Jason and Myra who heard it from somewhere else. I believe it though. The toilet was nasty, grimy, and the stain on the edge of the seat forced me to lean closer into the toilet bowl. As I worked hard to scrub the shit—sticky and yellow—I saw the toilet seat returning to its original silvery color. When Mom comes home, she could sit on a clean toilet seat, so I scrub and scrub and all this time, I worried that a stream of
shit would just puke out from the toilet and drown me.
When he came downstairs yesterday, he said Hi to me, maybe. He mumbled something but I don’t think I caught it. I was outside the bathroom door, listening to the silence inside, waiting to react to something bad. When he opened the bathroom door, eyes all shifty and legs quick to maneuver around me, I balled my fists as tight as possible. Then as soon as he started walking away, more like running, I saw the shit stain on the toilet seat. I heard him say Sorry, but I started chasing after him anyway. In one lurch, I clutched both his shoulders. His shoulders felt so flimsy I could probably crush him like a bag of chips. Then his shoulders started trembling and I started feeling really bad for him. Maybe Eli was just a poor guy who didn’t know how to shit.
* Mom said I should play with Eli more because he is a “good kid.” I think Mom just thinks I should do something nice for him because he has no friends. Also who said all 12-year-olds could just be friends? I have opinions and interiority, Mom!!! Frankly I think Mom was acting like a tyrant for thinking I had to do anything for Eli. I mean there’s a lot of reasons why someone would not have friends, you know? It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or that anyone should feel bad for you. Like for example, Mabel from my homeroom has a lot of friends but sometimes she’ll borrow your stuff and never give it back. That’s stealing! Eli has never stolen anything from me, so at least he’s not someone who stole like Mabel, and everyone knows stealing is bad. What I’m trying to say is, I think Mom should not feel bad for Eli because he has no friends because honestly there are so many bad things that can happen to someone and not having friends sucks, but it’s OK.
Ever since we moved here, I’ve stopped bringing any friends over. Living in the basement definitely isn’t all that fun but the single worst thing is how easy it is for people to come downstairs. Maybe one day I’m trying to hide a hundred thousand dollars in Mom’s drawer, Eli or Mrs. Mescal can just come down and see that I am trying to hide a hundred thousand dollars in Mom’s drawer. Anyways, whenever I had a friend over, Mrs. Mescal always found some excuse to come downstairs. I usually never see her, but on the occasions that Jason or Myra was here, Mrs. Mescal suddenly needs to walk through the basement to get to her backyard and water her plants. Maybe she didn’t like strangers so Jason and Myra might’ve startled her, so the first few times I was like, FINE. She’s seen them, has put a name to their faces, but still, every single time, she would come downstairs without fail and greet us in a voice radiant like summer. She would ask if we wanted tea. “My friends love gifting me tea!”
It bugged me. I couldn’t do anything about it though. For as long as I was living in the basement she could just open the door to come downstairs. It felt unfair. Eli, too, was nosy as fuck. Actually he’s more like creepy, according to Myra who wanted to get rid of him really badly.
Sometimes I would see him at the top of the stairs, just standing there and listening. We would all give him a glare and mouth to him to FUCK OFF, and then he does. He always does. Myra said she caught Eli’s stare one time; it was late at night when we did our very rare sleepover and Myra said she almost screamed then. She would bring it up afterwards a lot. How Eli’s stare bothered her and how sometimes, when she was taking the subway alone, because no one could pick her up, old men would look at her. I asked her if Eli’s look reminded her of the old men’s look. “NO. It’s not really the same. I wasn’t all that terrified of Eli’s look,” she said. “I just don’t like to be looked at. Is anyone asking
me when they look at me? Why don’t they?” After a few times, I just decided to stop bringing anyone over and we all went to Jason’s instead.
Maybe I would’ve told Mom but I knew it would stress her out that Eli was giving me trouble. Mrs. Mescal was our landlord and we had to be as nice as possible. Plus she was somehow convinced that Eli was a good kid. I don’t know where she got that from because she had never really interacted with Eli. As far as I knew, Mom always believed in the good things and was always bright eyed about it all. Mom, Eli’s a big fat weirdo!
Jason’s parents were rarely home so we got to play on his gaming PC. We touched his vast collection of game consoles that was only getting bigger and bigger. Jason’s a great friend. He loved to share his games, which were his joy, and I know Jason would cry so hard if his gaming PC ever broke down or got shitted on like our toilet seat, but he still let all his friends play
/ CRY, BABY
with his laptop and games. I loved Jason for it. It’s hard to lend other people something that you are really afraid of losing. Personally, I would never let anyone touch my movie poster collection. Jason didn’t even know that I have a poster collection. Myra did because nothing escaped her eyes, which were always looking around, paying attention.
Mom used to work at a movie theater and instead of tossing out the old movie posters, she would give them to me as a Friday Surprise. My favorite poster has got to be the Jaws one. It was my favorite because every time I saw it, and my eyes landed on the shark, my mind would fill the gap with what-has-not-happened. It’s thrilling. Sometimes I imagined the shark swallowing the person whole; other times I imagined another kind of digestion, that the person is being crunched into bits between its spindly and dense teeth. I’ve never seen Jaws so I don’t know what is true to the movie. I hope Mom can take me to see it in theaters
one day if they are still playing it. Otherwise we can just watch it at home. That’s cool too. Every time, looking at this poster has me imagining violence that has yet to happen.
Myra hated my Jaws poster. It’s so cruel, Myra said. “Look at that person swimming at the top. I love swimming but now I’m gonna be swimming and wondering if there’s a big fat shark below coming for my life! Isn’t that so fucking awful?” Myra never saw the movie either and said she never wanted to see it. Ever. After Myra said that, I felt so horrible about showing her my poster that I tried explaining myself to Jason to relieve myself of the guilt.
“Myra wanted to see my poster so I showed it to her, but she didn’t like it at all! She said she was disturbed.” Jason shrugged his chill Jason shrug: a quick, millisecond shoulder raise followed by a return to a position that made his shoulders look more sloped than before.
“Parker. Please. It’s not that deep. Myra can have opinions that disagree with you, it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong by showing her your posters. You wanted to share your treasures. I love showing people my treasures.”
After what Jason said, I felt better by thinking that what I did was actually a good thing. I was sharing my treasure with other people.
* I agreed to it. We all did—always did—to Myra because she was irresistible.
“Parker, you live with a weirdo,” Myra said as she sat me and Jason down across from her. Ever since Myra saw Eli’s shadow, I know she’s been spooked. We were in Jason’s living room and Myra was seated criss-cross applesauce on the rug, a fruit knife gripped in the palm of her left hand. She had a plastic bag with maybe fifteen oranges—I only roughly count-
ed—and we were seated in a small circle with Myra as its invisible center. Everyone thinks Myra’s either my girlfriend or Jason’s. Mabel said Jason and I were gay for each other. But Myra never shied away from us because of the baseless shit people said. Plus that’s just so boring! We are best friends and that is SO much cooler.
Although I do try to shut people up whenever I hear that though because I am still worried it makes Myra uncomfortable and I don’t want her to stop hanging out with us because of what other people say.
“What’s his name again?” Jason asked.
“Eli.”
“Is Eli a nickname?” Myra pressed on.
“I’ve only heard him being called Eli.” I said. I didn’t know why it mattered.
“I think he’s creepy.” Jason and I nodded. Obviously I was sympathetic to Myra. “I don’t like the way he looked
at me.” I nodded, slow and directed. That’s how Mom nods at Mrs. Mescal.
I’m showing you how to be a good boy, she said.
“Isn’t it cool that we all have two syllable names?” Jason asked. I wanted to agree, but Myra already opened her mouth. Jason sees things, very beautiful things, that neither me nor Myra can see.
“Parker, I’m so serious. I don’t even know how to describe it, but he just sort of had a very desperate look on him. Like a sad dog.”
“Good thing, at the very least, dogs are not harmful. Actually sad dogs are the most harmful to themselves. They eat less and sleep more,” I said. Probably would develop other health issues that made them more sad, I would’ve added, but Myra flipped off at me. I don’t get it. I don’t know how to deal with girls and their moods. Mom, now that she started working towards her college degree again, had begun giving
me mini-lectures on feminism. Consider me educated!
“Yeah sorry, he just sort of lurks around the house. I don’t know if he knows he’s being a freak.” I paused to take in Myra’s reaction. “I think he just has no friends.”
“Fuck what he THINKS. It’s what he DID that counts, and clearly no one is happy.” Jason chimed in. Myra shrugged but I could tell she was not over it at all. She was slicing more oranges with her fruit knife, each cut precise and intentional as it ever could be.
Lined up in a neat row in front of her, Myra gave a satisfactory nod.
“Open your mouth,” Myra said. I did. I made a long O with my mouth and wiggled my chin to feel the border of my face and where it ended. Myra sliced a quarter of an orange, put down her knife, and wrestled that slice of orange into my mouth horizontally like she was slapping a sticker onto a wall.
other slice for Jason. “So I was thinking,” Myra began, “we really need to do something.” Jason and I got really quiet, waiting for Myra to finish her thought, but she picked up her knife and sliced another orange for herself and gently bit into it. Her mouth moved slowly. Then she took another bite and with a glamorous seal to her performance, she licked her lips in one quick motion.
“Isn’t it so unfair that he gets to have the power? Why does he get to look at us and come downstairs whenever he wants to?” She paused then fixed her gaze at me. “Doesn’t that bother you, Parker?” I looked at Myra, then at Jason. I didn’t know if Myra wanted an answer or an affirmation.
“He’s probably doing it on purpose because he has no friends so he’s jealous,” Jason said.
“It’s so obvious,” Myra added. She had run out of oranges.
The more we talked about him, the angrier I got at Eli. It was true, he was a real ass, and I didn’t like that at all. He shitted on our toilet, probably on purpose, for the love of holy Jesus! Maybe it was time to execute some justice, I agreed.
“The way he looked at me really scared me,” Myra said again but I don’t think I really heard her, I was feeling electric jolts tumbling in my body and focused on breathing in some slow, terse breaths then releasing them.
*
That weekend, we went back to our basement and planned our Genius Revenge Plot on Eli who was now Enemy Number One. I woke up before sunrise. Mom gave me The Eye because it was Sunday and I was usually dilly dallying in bed until lunch. Myra had pleaded and pleaded with her sister to skip church that Sunday. In exchange, Myra said she had to give up her allowance this month for her
sister to afford a smoking session with her boyfriend next weekend. “I’m so excited for this,” Myra told me when we left Jason’s room. Jason didn’t seem that enthusiastic at first, but then he seemed affected by Myra’s enthusiasm. He told his parents days ahead that he would be coming over to my place that Sunday morning.
* Mom was surprised that Jason and Myra were coming over ever since we all started going to Jason’s weeks ago. Mom was mopping the floor for a really long time today. Jason offered to help but Mom responded, “Don’t worry about me. Do you guys want to have Eli come downstairs and play with you guys?” Mom did not know how to be subtle. I shook my head and she made a dramatic frown where her forehead looked like fat parentheses. “You’re not a generous boy, Parker.”
“MOM!!! I don’t want to hang out with Eli.”
“Can you have Eli come down? Please please please!” Mom smiled at Myra’s words.
“You’re so adorable, Myra. I would’ve loved to have a daughter like you.” Myra beamed. Oh Myra Oh Myra. Oh everyone loves Myra. I let my face be as stiff as possible, my lips pouting just a little, but I hope Mom noticed. Mom went upstairs and in the total silence between the three of us, I could hear Mom’s melodic voice speaking but I couldn’t hear the response. Maybe Eli was too scared to come down to play with us or maybe he knew that we were up to no good. Good, maybe this plan would be nixed without ever being carried out. It would have nothing to do with us if Eli made a decision for himself. Then he came down. Eli came down first and Mom followed, a gentle hand around his bony shoulders.
“OK. I know you guys don’t want me around so I will leave. I will be taking on Mrs. Mescal’s invitation for tea and chat. Call for me if anything.” We all
holed up in her room everyday. Didn’t she kill her husband? Oh but what else did I not know? Mom had turned around but then her voice started again. “Also Myra, don’t take this personally, but I don’t believe what I said earlier.” Myra was already drawing her brows together. Mom continued, “I wouldn’t want to be anyone else’s mother.” Then Mom came over and kissed my forehead. Hard press of her lips.
Myra gave a glittering smile and made something like an AWWW sound. Mom released her hands from the back of my forehead and gave me a tender look. Eli no longer looked shy like before. Chest sticking out, hands clasped together behind him, ready. Did he smile? “I saw you looking at me the last time we were here,” Myra began. Eli blinked harder which made Myra giggle. “Do you like me?” I couldn’t tell what Eli was thinking, feeling.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” he said. At this point, Jason and I stood on either side of Myra, a panel of judges.
“You know it’s really weird to stare at a girl. Especially if you are a dude,” Jason’s pitch was rising, “You know that, right?” “Sorry.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Myra cut off whatever Jason was about to say next and threw a glance at the stairs. “Do you want to play a game with us?” Eli nodded, looking at the floor as Myra handed him a blindfold. “Marco Polo,” she added, but it didn’t matter.
“Ok.” Eli didn’t say another word as he put the blindfold over his eyes, his shoulder stretching behind him for a brief moment before it landed back close to his sides. I wondered if Eli sensed danger or if he didn’t care. Was he just too lonely and friendless? Did Myra and Jason’s words put him to shame? Once Eli was blindfolded, I could sense Jason slowly approaching the foot of the stairs until his back was all you would see from above. From behind, Myra hooked her right arm
/ CRY, BABY
around Eli’s neck and tightened it into a chokehold. A gurgle of noises shoved itself back inside Eli’s throat. In another sudden move, she put a hand over his mouth in one muscular grip. At least. At least, if today was Eli’s last day, he was touched, even if not gentle, by a goddess. Myra gradually crouched onto the floor, dragging Eli down with her. Eli looked like the person swimming in Jaws and Myra was crunching down on him. Eli shook his shoulders, mildly at first, then wild. Eli was so thin, I could already see the bruises he would get from Myra’s arms that grated his collarbone and sharpened itself against the friction of his shirt. I remember clenching the length of my hands around his shoulders, a baggy fistful of bones, and thinking a person was just that. I wanted to cry.
The door could be open at any moment therefore Jason stood there, ready to pounce at Eli in case of an emergency. I loved Jason then. He was a border, a door. The thing that was missing all this time. I wanted to know what he
was thinking. Was he scared or excited or ashamed? Our gaze caught each other’s. I wished Eli would break away and run upstairs. Just leave! We were watching Myra, letting Myra, condoning Myra, seeing Myra, take everything out on Eli. “Don’t look at me like a creep anymore. GET IT?” Myra’s voice was loud but not very clear. Her body was balled up around Eli, her chest against his back as she suffocated him from behind. Eli stopped moving. Myra released her hand over his mouth. If you saw this, you wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Eli and Myra were cuddling each other, with Myra being the strong lover with a good chest that Eli was leaning on right now. I stared at Myra and could not see anything else but her long hair hung around her face, some strands tickling her lips. Her arms were so toned that as Eli struggled beneath her, I knew he stood no chance. If Mom walked in, she would probably think that, and hope that we were
having a lovely time with each other. I remember that awful shit stain that morning, chalky and foul. Made from Eli. I remember feeling very mad. But now that I stood here, watching Eli get rapidly choked to death, I was confused on the best thing to do next. Mom, I think I am not a generous boy at all.
It was really gloomy outside now. Clouds had gathered into dense, heavy blobs that looked ready to fall down on us. The day was making its inevitable, headlong stride forward. Myra removed one arm from Eli’s neck then slowly—with a performer’s grace and awareness of timing—released the other previously chained around Eli’s chest with her hand covering his mouth. Eli was so still, I was afraid he was already dead. I didn’t know if he was, and what I would do if he died. Would Mrs. Mescal kill me? Would she kick us out of her home? Would Mom and I be looking for a new place to live? I would have to leave this school for the next one. Jason and
Myra would go to 8th grade together next year then high school then forget me. Where would I belong? I would be a new kid that no one gives a shit about at God Knows Where. At least Mrs. Mescal wasn’t such a pain in the ass. I didn’t have to say a billion thank yous and there’s no ugly old man touching Mom’s butt. If Mrs. Mescal kicked us out, we would be like orphans again. Please don’t let that happen to me. Or Mom.
I couldn’t see his eyes but at once, I heard a choke come out of him and my nose started stinging. Thank fucking God she released Eli because he definitely would’ve died if Myra did not for even another second. Myra let out a heavy breath that sounded like relief. Her face betrayed nothing as she plopped herself down against the wall. “Why didn’t you resist?” Myra’s voice was strained, chipped at the edges. I watched her curl into fetal position, arms hugging herself as she shut her eyes. “Take that blindfold off! Take it off!!!” Myra’s muffled voice fell to the
ground with Eli, who laid unmoving in the center of us.
“I thought you wanted to play with me,” Eli said, his blindfold still on his face, covering his eyes. I wasn’t sure who he was addressing. “Your mom said so.” I wanted him to look at me then, more than anything else in the world. My chin trembled. I was uncontrollable now. Tears wetted my face but Eli refused to look. He stood up from the floor and watched us. Me and Myra let out a wail, maybe a scream. SOS. I imagine we were crying enough to fill a big bucket that could probably drown a dog. There was no music to our sounds. Jason, who had walked away from the stairs, sat down next to Myra and patted her back with a tender rhythm that encouraged Myra to lean into Jason’s arms. Jason’s back was to me. Did he want to cry too? His head looked like it was convulsing, maybe it was just nodding along, alongside Myra’s. I would think he was crying then. I’ve never seen Jason cry because he always had a friendly smile
on his face that it was easy to forget that he was totally capable of other things, other emotions.
I couldn’t tell the sound of my own crying from Myra’s. Our crying was in such perfect sync that every sniffle made me feel like I was both fully outside of and inside Myra’s heart. We were sharing this cry together. I collapsed into my hands, refusing to look at anyone as I gave into myself. It was snowing outside.
“Parker! Parker!” It was Mom running down the stairs in steps. She looked bright like the sun was shining directly above me. She saw us, the crying kids. Crybabies. “Look, everyone. Look! It’s snowing outside.” Did we look like we had suffered together? Mom looked at me, who was sitting close to Eli and crying with him. She looked at me. One look and I knew that she understood everything. She crouched down and took off Eli’s blindfold, leaving a strong kiss on his forehead. Then a cheek kiss for me, and stepping behind
us, she gave the same cheek kisses to Jason and Myra.
“Thanks,” Myra said with struggle. Mom opened the window and a gust of wind carried with it, a lot of fluttery snow. Mom was standing by the window, looking over us. “You guys want to play in the snow? It’s so beautiful. So gorgeous outside!” When the wind struck me, I felt where my body, in its bones and flesh, met the rest of the world.
CRYBABY! / CRY, BABY
CHARLIE COLEMAN
RISING TRICOLON
Dog barking in my hall— strangely slate and waxy noise I don’t often hear at this hour.
Drunk like cardboard boxes I come home to the lack of you staring at the posters in my bedroom
where I live unravished. Famished and vegetable, so lucky I sleep few and bridges across these days.
Cicero, in middle school, was a comfort to me, this man who only lived with his mind, shining through its jar into fleshless cloisters of instinct. Despite popular misconception, Romans didn’t fuck. They merely maintained clients.
Plenty of New Yorkers lead sexless lives and they all eat at my restaurant. I guess the train is phallus enough.
COLEMAN
4×4 PROSE AWARD WINNER
JONATHAN WANG HOU
MY BATHROOM LIGHT
It flickers on, and off, and on, for longer each time before it stays lit. One of these days it will not come on. It will have committed itself to the long sleep. The bulb will be fused, the current frustrated. The bulb does not want to be frustrated. It wants to give way, but resignation keeps the tungsten taut. Or maybe it’s another deep and unqualifiable upwards thrust, groaning, beladen, oppressively humid, but we mustn’t forget, unqualifiable, like rising from a nondescript bed in a nondescript room at a nondescript hour before waking up, not having done any of it. Either way, it stays lit. For the time being, it does its job, it watches over an ungrateful man as he files his nails and fingers his teeth and fails to understand, touching himself, how there could be more to his enlightenment than being turned on, and off, and on
EAMON COSTELLO
ALWAYS NEVER CHANGE
Alright it’s starting to snow we have to leave
The moment field
Where you dreamed about fulfilling supplements to take
Ideas are more lofty in the nighttime
And when you unravel them they fortify themselves
And looking for something lost is no fun
I was looking to have a precious year
Waiting in the wings with dozens
After, you told me I was falling asleep, I still answered.
And once I waited forty seconds
To conjure sleep
Again, I thought you were a snowman.
THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE TO THANK, but of course we will try. To our staff, we love and are so grateful for you. The immeasurable creativity, energy, and intelligence you have brought to this work will stick with us for many years to come. This issue is yours. To our seniors, Ale, Daniel, Josh, Naomi, Serena, and Stephen, thank you for your years, your ideas, and your dedication to our little magazine. Thank you for making it a home.
To our judges, Terese Svoboda and Nicolás Medina Mora, our fullest gratitude. Thank you for your thoughtful reading and your incisive comments. We are beyond honored by the time and care you’ve given us and our contributors.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to the Activities Board at Columbia and the Columbia Arts Initiative for your generosity. Without your support, this magazine literally would not exist.
To our submitters, thank you for your bravery: we have cherished all your words, and are grateful that you chose us to submit them to. It has been our sincere pleasure to gather week after week to consider and read your work.
Thank you to our contributors for trusting us. We are eminently grateful for the chance to showcase your work, knowing that there are many other magazines that would be lucky to feature it.
Lastly, we would like to thank you, our reader, for picking up this strange little square and giving it a moment of your time. We hope that you’ve enjoyed it and seen what makes it special, as we have.
CONTRIBUTORS
REESE ALEXANDER is originally from Birmingham, Alabama. She is a writer of short stories, poetry, and every dark corner in between two. She starts her MFA in Creative Writing at Brown University in the fall. You may reach her at erinreesealex@gmail.com.
ANDREW FORREST JOSEPH BLAKE is dissolving. It was a good run! He works for the Department of Semiotic Affairs.
HELEN CHEN (she/her) is a Chinese American writer. Her writing has been featured in jmww, Sine Theta, MudRoom, Citron Review, and others. She loved her grandma’s scarf.
NATHAN CHO (he/him) is a sophomore studying English and Creative Writing. His interests are niche, not that he really cares about any of them. He is, you could say, totally nonchalant.
CHARLIE COLEMAN is a senior at Barnard studying English, theatre, and philosophy. His work has been featured in Quarto Magazine, ZENIADA, and Jet Fuel Review. He is a passionate people-watcher.
EAMON COSTELLO is an editor-in-chief of The Columbia Review. He recommends that you get involved in JJs Fam.
JONATHAN WANG HOU writes postcards.
RENEE MICHELLE MORALES is a poet from Hialeah, Florida. She desperately hopes to own a Corgi sanctuary someday, but until then, she’s somewhere writing poems.
LÚCIA TOWNE is originally from Sandwich, Illinois (yes, really). She is a junior at Barnard studying English with a concentration in American Literature. The daughter of a librarian, Lúcia has been caring a lot about books since birth. You can find more of her writing this semester in Roots, Columbia’s Ethnic Studies Journal.
Sponsored in part by the ARTS INITIATIVE at COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY .
N O 12 2025